How These Entrepreneurs Under 30 are Changing the World

An Entrepreneur article featured several 20-somethings who are changing the world with innovative business ideas. One of the things they all have in common: the innovative use of technology to solve problems. They’re not just building better mousetraps; they’re finding new ways to deal with mice.

There’s Jessica Scorpio, whose business, Getaround, helps people share cars that spend much of the time not being used.

Michael Presman cut out the designer to offer designer-quality clothing for less with his online retailer, Everlane.

And Brian Wong, founder of Kiip, came up with a way for advertisers to better connect with smartphone game players by offering rewards instead of annoying ads.

“They may be inexperienced, but they’re fearless when it comes to tackling long-stagnant business models and technologies with fresh new approaches — ones that align with their Internet upbringing and their expectation that commodities and information be transparent and easily shared,” Jason Ankeny writes in Entrepreneur.

Kiip, for example, gets a cut when a game player submits an email address to claim a reward.

Raised on the Internet

That Internet upbringing has certainly given these Millennials a new way of thinking about business opportunities. Technology has made it possible to develop creative new approaches to common problems. And the growing resources and buzz about startups – and the success of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg — has contributed to a greater appetite for risk.

Nothing to lose

Younger entrepreneurs have another quality that can be an advantage. The great thing about starting a business in your 20s is you don’t have a lot to lose financially, as entrepreneur Bernd Schoner wrote in an article in Inc.

“First of all, if your post-school entrepreneurial endeavors stumble, you won’t fall very far,” Schooner writes. “Your financial needs are probably as low as they will ever be. You share an apartment in borderline sanitary conditions, and your family is very small — as in one-person small. You do not carry the financial baggage that will burden later years of your life. In addition to your personal financial flexibility, you don’t have the expectations of an established professional. There will be time to make money, but for now being pooris just fine. You secretly hope you will be following in the footsteps of Steve Jobs, who reflected: ‘I never worried about money…. I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn’t have to worry about money.'”

All entrepreneurs can learn from the inspiring successes of the Millennial millionaire creators of of SwitfKey, Kiip, Everlane and Getaround. What’s your business idea?